Juan Carlos Onetti Critical Essay | Critical Essay by M. Ian Adams

Critical Essay by M. Ian Adams

Many of [Onetti's works] fall into the territory between novel and short story. The relative complexity of theme and the quantity of subjective elements associated with it … seem to be reasonable criteria to separate short novels from short stories. Thus El pozo, although of few pages, is in Onetti's novelistic mode because of the presence of many themes and because of the subjective, ambiguous presentation of these themes. "El infierno tan temido" is structured around one action and its consequences and is very limited thematically. "Jacob y el otro" is of greater length than the other stories, but is again characterized by simplicity. A future action, a wrestling match, is the cause of all of the story's movement, and there are few complications of imagery or subjective content.

Complexity and ambiguity are the major characteristics of Onetti's novels. (p. 38)

Readers of Onetti know that Santa María is a...
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